


A Dance Of Shadows Within The Void

by vampirenestor



Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blankgameplays - Freeform, CrankGameplays - Freeform, Emotional Hurt, Ethan Nestor Egos, Gen, How Do I Tag, I love Ethan Nestor, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, Mental Anguish, Mental Instability, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Drama, Psychological Horror, Psychological Warfare, Scary, Secret Identity, Strange Behavior, Suspense, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Twitching, Weird Plot Shit, Weirdness, actually maybe it will, read it to find out, tapping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirenestor/pseuds/vampirenestor
Summary: Ethan Nestor has started to develop strange and mysterious behaviors that he has no control over and it has him fearful for the state of his own mind.It has to be him making something out of nothing, right?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	1. Twitching & Tapping

It had only started a month ago, and yet Ethan already couldn't stand it. 

He couldn't stand how it could start up at any given moment and then wouldn’t relent for hours on end. 

He couldn't stand how it seemed especially worse when he was inattentive in one way or another, whether it was him zoning out while lost in thought, or being hyper focused on something while ignoring and forgetting everything else, or even while he was napping or sleeping. 

He found himself more and more frequently waking up to it in the middle of the night and early in the morning. He found himself doing it while he was on his phone or while he was editing a video. He could quite literally find himself at any given moment, day or night, doing it and it was absolutely infuriating. 

At first, Ethan had chalked it up to his ADHD and that he suspected he needed a higher dosage of his meds for it, but even after doing so it failed to cease the infuriatingly unending combination of twitching and tapping his hands would do.

His hands would switch back and forth between twitching and tapping. To anyone who didn’t know him it would just simply seem like physical effects of anxiety or adhd, but here's the kicker- Ethan couldn't control it. 

Sure, his adhd may cause him to be a bit jumpy, and sure, he may be just a bit of an anxious guy, but he was never the type to twitch or tap. In fact, every time it popped up, Ethan couldn't stop it no matter how hard he tried. He could barely get away with a few seconds of holding one hand down with the other before the mysterious strength that seemed to possess his hands overpowered the other one holding it down. Controlling them was useless and it made his life a living hell that he could barely manage to live by. 

It was absolute hell and he was determined to change it.


	2. Sleep Is No Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for slight/mild mention of blood! It’s only mentioned once in passing but I thought I’d put a tw just in case. But other than that enjoy the new chapter!

Despite being both incredibly annoyed and baffled after a month's time of Ethan’s hands seemingly going mad, he had almost gotten used to it. The tapping and twitching didn't happen every day, and at one point had completely stopped for 2 weeks straight.

If only he was as fortunate as he thought he’d been.

2 weeks after the 1 month mark, when Ethan had truly started to get used to it, something else had started to happen. Yet another strange behavior had started to appear. Now, Ethan had started to notice fingernail indents on his forearm when he would wake up in the mornings- as if he had been gripping it the entire night. Thankfully, it wasn't so tight to the point of breaking skin, just deep imprints that faded away as the day trudged on only for them to reappear with the next morning's light. 

Just a few days after the fingernail imprints had started to appear, long, ragged scratches had begun to appear on his other forearm, violent and red, like his wrist had been the victim of an angry cat dragging its claws down the expanse of his arm. Likewise with the fingernail imprints, the amassed array of scratches had completely faded and disappeared by the evening, only to reappear by the shine of the morning light.

//

Ethan was wrenched away from his peaceful slumber due to waves of burning pain ripping down his forearm with the scratches in unrelenting waves. His eyes welled up with tears as he sat up in bed still half-asleep as he looked at his wrist to see what was causing him such mind-numbing pain. 

He blinked away the tears and looked down at his forearm only to be met with confusion. His arm was in so much pain because his other hand was deeply clamped onto it, frozen mid-scratch. Ethan winced as he gingerly pulled his hand away to properly inspect the damage. The scratches were fresh; they were an angry red and stood raised against the skin, leaving the surrounding areas bruised and tender. The tips of his fingernails were lined with blood. He frowned in confusion, his fear spiking.

“Wha-what the fuck is going on? Why was I scratching so deep? That's- i've never scratched deep enough to draw blood before…” Ethan's voice wavered as he spoke to himself.

“Should probably go clean this up, looks pretty bad.” he mumbled as he slid out of his bed and into the bathroom to clean and wrap his arm.

Once he finished and his arm was bandaged, he stared at himself in the mirror, hands gripping the sides of the sink. The bags under his eyes were dark and large, the lines reaching into his cheeks. His face pale and lackluster, devoid of any color apart from the tone of his skin itself. His bottom lip split in multiple places from being nervously chewed on so much. Ethan looked sickly, pallid even. He of course, knew he wasn't PHYSICALLY sick, but the stress of your body doing things of its own accord can do a pretty big number on your psyche. He scoffed and shook his head in disdain at the sight of himself and walked away back to his bed. He sat down on the edge of his bed and dropped his head into his hands with a sigh.

“I need to get a fucking grip on myself. I- i can't let all of this weird shit get in the way of my life. MY life. No matter what weird shit happens.”

Ethan’s drooping eyes glanced at his phone laying on the nightstand beside him. 3:17 am. Ethan sighed again. Sleep was scarce as of late, his mind providing an endless fill of the same nightmare that usually had him thrashing in his sleep and waking up in a cold sweat, breathless and heart racing, his fear-driven eyes vehemently darting around the room before his mind settled down and remembered that he was safely tucked away in his bed in his own home. Whatever. Fuck it. He was tired and his arm ached and he just wanted more than a few hours of sleep at a time, so he was willing to risk another night of the same nightmare that was quickly growing old.

“It's not like sleeping was ever a sanctuary anyways…” Ethan mumbled to himself as he slowly tucked himself back into bed, hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

  
  
  



	3. Ink-Stained Nightmares

Ethan was having another nightmare. Except this time it was different than the same one that tormented his dreams almost every night, this one was new, and far, far worse.

//

Ethan found himself standing in his living room, everything appeared to be normal except that the edges of his vision seemed to have some sort of vignette-like black ring and his vision was slightly blurred. He looked around and saw nothing out of place, so he turned to the direction of his bedroom only to be stopped by a hand forcefully clamping down on his shoulder and turning him back around. No one. Nothing. Ethan frowned. “What the f-'' he was cut off by a dual-toned bellowing voice so loud it was like Ethan could hear it from inside his head.   


“ _NO. YOU ARE MINE AND YOU WILL SEE THAT. REMEMBER MY VOICE ETHAN, IT'LL BE THE ONLY CHANCE YOU GET. DON'T FORGET ETHAN, YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THAT HEAD OF YOURS, YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE._ ” the dizzyingly loud voice faded away with a vicious cackle, leaving Ethan a ghost-faced, wide-eyed frozen mess. 

He tensed up even more when he saw what had appeared on the walls and ceiling around him. 

**_NOT THE ONLY ONE_ ** was plastered on every bit of open space on the walls in dark blue ink. 

Ethan was too petrified to notice that the voice had been eerily similar to his own voice. The writing on the walls faded away as Ethan stumbled backwards and fell on the floor. As soon as he touched the ground, he awoke with a start, shooting up from his bed in a cold sweat and out of breath. He was shaking too. A few more shaky breaths and tears started pouring out of his eyes uncontrollably with no end in sight. That entire experience was immensely traumatizing, no doubt about it.   


What the hell did that voice mean by saying he wasn't alone? And why had it said Ethan belonged to it? 

Not wanting to remember the events that had just occurred, Ethan began crying harder and brought his hands to his face. 

Wait. 

Ethan froze when he saw his hands. His fingertips were stained with a dark blue ink, the same ink that the words that covered his walls were written with in his nightmare. He ripped his hands away from his face and roughly wiped his hands against his blanket, desperately trying to get it off. It would not. Instead, it stayed on his fingers only to slowly fade away on its own a few seconds later. Once Ethans tears subsided, he took a deep breath and looked up from his knees where his head had been resting when he saw it. On the wall in front of him were the words  **_NOT THE ONLY ONE_ ** written in the same dark blue ink, with drops of ink slowly rolling down the wall before stopping in place. Ethan went stiff, rigid, and wide-eyed once again.   


“WHAT THE FUCK!”


End file.
